


Homecomings

by jeeno2



Series: One Hundred Ways to Say I Love You [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Kissing, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-12-06 00:25:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11589234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeeno2/pseuds/jeeno2
Summary: She finds him again at last.





	1. I was just thinking about you.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written as a series of short ficlets on tumblr in response to prompts from a "One Hundred Ways to Say I Love You" prompt list. Possible spoilers for S7 but only if you squint.

Arya has lost track of how long it’s been since she’s seen him.

She knows it’s been many months, at least, since they were lost children together in the Riverlands. Though from the coarse stubble now dotting his chin and upper lip Arya suspects it’s been much longer than that. 

It doesn’t matter. The moment she sees him standing at the front of Winterfell’s Great Hall with the other men bound for the Wall, his hands clasped behind his back and his brow furrowed as he speaks with Jon, Arya realizes, with a sudden clarity she hasn’t felt in many weeks, that she would recognize, _know,_ this boy anywhere.

“It’s you,” she says. She just  _says_  it, without waiting for a pause in his conversation. Like she hasn’t imagined a scene like this one countless times since returning to Westeros, and as though it hasn’t been an age at least since he first her of being a girl and she pushed him down into the mud.

At her words, Gendry abruptly stops talking strategy with his fellow soldiers. He silently blinks several times and then slowly – like he’s moving through fog; like he’s in some kind of fever dream – he pivots on one foot until he’s facing her.

His bright, blue eyes go wide as saucers.

“It’s me,” he eventually agrees. His voice is different now. Deeper, to be sure; but also more confident. More self-sure, somehow. “And… well.” A long pause. “It’s  _you_.”

They stand there, blinking and staring at each other wordlessly for what feels like an impossibly long time. Gendry’s eyes slowly rove over her face, her hands, everywhere, but Arya is so busy taking him in as well she hardly notices.

“I was just thinking about you,” he admits as she studies him, so quietly that at first Arya isn’t certain she heard him right. 

Her eyes snap to his.  He holds her gaze, unflinchingly.

She swallows. “You were?”

He nods. “Yeah. It’s because I’m here, I think. In this place. At Winterfell. You’re…” He trails off, a faint flush beginning to color his cheeks. He rubs at the back of his neck. “You’re everywhere I turn.” 

Arya doesn’t know what to do with that. She doesn’t know what to do with  _any_  of this. With the fact that her brother will soon lead an army of men, women, and children into a war against undead monsters, or with the fact that the boy who crushed her heart back when she was too young to know what that meant is now standing here before her, in her childhood home, preparing to join the war himself and gazing at her like she hung the moon.

“Be careful,” she blurts out by way of response. She knows it’s probably not the right thing to say. But she’s never been good at that sort of thing. 

He takes a step closer to her. Takes her hand in his, and gives it a gentle squeeze. 

“I will be,” he murmurs, his words sounding like nothing so much as a promise.

 


	2. Dreaming of you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may end up adding a little part 3 to this fic (if time allows). <3

By the time the war north of the Wall is finished and won and their motley band finally begins its long return journey to Winterfell, Gendry has lost so much blood from his injuries he has difficulty putting one foot in front of the other.

Arya stands a few feet away from him as he struggles to lace up his boots, watching him as he pretends not to notice.

“We’re almost there,” Arya says assertively. Her arms are folded defiantly across her chest, and she glares at him as though daring him to contradict her. “You’ll be able to rest soon.”

Despite everything – the bitter cold; the fact that he’s quite nearly dead on his feet – Gendry has to bite back a smile.

He knows she means only to encourage him with her words. But she’s clearly lying. They have miles yet left to cover before they even make it to the Wall, and she knows that as well as anybody.

“Right,” is all Gendry says by way of response. He tries to smile but doesn’t quite manage it. “Nearly there.” He bends once more to his boots, cursing his clumsy hands and wishing they would stop shaking long enough for him to do up the laces properly.

A moment later she’s at his side. She kneels in front of him so that they’re eye-level, and she grabs his chin in both hands so he has to look her in the eye. Her face is just inches from his, now, and he can feel the heat of her touch all the way through the thick woolen mittens she wears. 

“You are going to make it,” she spits out, her eyes steely and fierce in a way Gendry has seen countless times in his dreams.

 _In fact, I dreamt about you last night_ , he thinks wildly.

But of course he cannot tell her that.

“I’m… going to make it,” he repeats instead.

She leans forward. Less than an inch of space separates them now, and he can feel her warm breath on his cheeks like a lover’s touch. “You are  _not_  going to die. I won’t have it. I  _won’t_. I’ve had enough people I care about dying on me to last a hundred lifetimes.”

He nods, very slowly. He tries to swallow, but she’s  _looking_ at him like he’s the only thing that matters to her, and it’s all he can do not to kiss her right there in the middle of everything and show her, at last, what she means to him.

“No dying,” he finally whispers. “I’m staying right here, Arya. I promise.”

She smiles, but the ferocity does not leave her eyes. “Good,” she says.

With a courage he knows he will never possess, Arya closes the short distance between them and presses her lips to his.

“Because if you  _do_  die,” she continues, when she pulls back from him after a very long moment, “I’ll kill you myself.” 

In spite of himself, and even though his heart is now pounding so loudly in his chest he’s certain the rest of their group can hear it, Gendry laughs. “I don’t doubt that for a second,” he assures her, before kissing her again.

**Author's Note:**

> If you'd like to find me on tumblr I'm there as jeeno2. :)


End file.
